by Robin NobleAs Lesley's recent blogs have shown, this is an exciting time of year, with things moving very fast; I recently took myself to the famous hillock, and, even tho' Lesley had made it clear, I was amazed at the growth in the wildflowers since Martine and I had last been there. Much of the summit of the hillock area is quite rough and stony, some of it you might describe as waste ground, and it is truly beautiful with the flowers, especially the lovely thistles she photographed, and the yellow composites - (hawkweeds, Lesley!). I too, wandered around the edges of the raised ground, which provides the view over the Étang, down towards the marshes. There were bushes laden with blossom, which from the distance looked like hawthorn but were not, but everywhere you looked there was luxuriant blossom.

As always, I particularly enjoyed the expanse of quite common things - like the sheets of white clover, which made me sneeze with its heavy scent. And where the grass was thinner, there was quite a lot of the scarlet pimpernel, rather like the field poppies (which have been wonderful), the sort of wildflower that was once simply described as an arable weed.It was fairly quiet as far as birds were concerned, but the sheer number of swallows, martins and swifts hurtling in different directions over the marshes was exciting in itself, and Lesley's local raptors showed themselves beautifully; incidentally, I do think that pic in her last blog must be a red kite, not a black - I had a quick but convincing view of one. Actually, quiet it was NOT; there was a lot of birdsong, most of which I did not know, but as nightingales have such a varied song, (and again, they are new to me), I did wonder if I might be hearing them.If the thistles and clover are the common, everyday flowers, I suppose you can regard the orchids as the aristocrats among them. I have been seeing a few lately on walks up a quiet country road behind our lotissement. A couple of weeks ago, I saw one very attractive white orchid, with a very green stem and leaves, but had no camera with me at the time, of course, and when I returned it had gone. I rather suspect the culprit was a sanglier, as that part of the relatively grassy verge had certainly been given quite a going-over in the interim! I think the orchid was a helleborine, but that must remain speculation.I stressed the green-ness of that particular orchid, as the next two I found, in quite a few places, had no green at all. The very slender stems and flowers of the first are a brownish purple, and it has effectively no leaves to speak of. As I say, I found quite a few of these most attractive flowers, which I have never seen before despite walking regularly this way over the last two years. (The photos show the nature of this orchid quite well, but make it bluer than it was). The Albera book names it as the Limodore à feuilles avortées, the violet birds' nest orchid.

And a third, which I have occasionally seen in woods in Britain, is also not green, being equally without chlorophyll; it, too, is semi-parasitic on the roots of other plants. It is browner than the previous one mentioned, with much denser flower spikes, but is close at least in name, being simply the néottie nid d'oiseau, the birds' nest orchid. These plants are quite mysterious, and some don't even appear above ground every year. Clearly the wetter winter has suited these very well, as I found several of the flower-spikes along the verge of our hill road, where I duly photographed them. Then, when shutting our slightly awkward gate one day, I noticed another, beautiful group, just beside where I often park my car! Since then another smaller group has appeared close by, where it could simply not have been missed in the last couple of years. So all the rain of this year is producing interesting results, as well as swelling the strawberries!

It's nearly all over, this spring migration that always starts with chaffinches and ends with honey buzzards.

Bruce and I went to the hillock at Canet St Nazaire last week, but once again the tramontane was too fierce that day, grounding most birds and making photography devilishly difficult. It was hard to stand still at times, never mind hold a camera still, and I don't know how Bruce managed to to get such good shots of several raptors. As well as a couple of honey buzzards, a kite also whizzed by (I was told it was black but in the photo below it looks more like a red to me?), and marsh harriers continued to quarter the grasses alongside the lagoon.

Honey buzzard - long, narrow tail, small head (photo by Bruce Hyde)

Black - or Red? - Kite (photo by Bruce Hyde)

Male Marsh Harrier (photo by Bruce Hyde)

Female Marsh Harrier (photo by Bruce Hyde)

Back there again at 8am yesterday, I was on my own. A gloomy morning with low cloud blotting out the Albères and Canigou completely. Would the north-west wind rise as forecast and bring a cloud of honey buzzards?

On arrival at the spot where everyone usually congregates (but which was now ominously deserted), the first thing that struck me was the number of very small, short-tailed birds around - that had not been there last time. Their high, whirring, song-flight was reminiscent of skylarks but their call was completely different and not nearly as pretty: a repetitive kind of ping - more like a grasshopper than a bird - which became slightly irritating after an hour or so. No noticeable colouring, other than brown. Some kind of pipit? Lark? Bunting? Too small for any of those, surely? They would fly up from the grass, whir around erratically (chasing insects, I presume), before finally diving back into the undergrowth, out of sight. Eventually one did perch for a nanosecond on a thistle, only to disappear as soon as I got the binoculars on it!

It was only when one of the GOR people turned up that I learned what they were: Fan tailed warblers.

Yves explained that they construct delicate, deep nests in the grass, from feathers and cobwebs. There must be several pairs nesting right there on the top of the hillock - and they must be very vulnerable to dangers like dogs bounding through the grass. (It's only a couple of hundred metres from houses and is a favourite spot for dog walkers.)

A little later a peculiar call alerted me to the arrival of a Great Spotted Cuckoo (which I blogged about last month). It was soon joined by its mate, and both disappeared over the back of the hillock. I was surprised to learn that these two aren't passing through - they are breeding in this area.

They are extremely well camouflaged

In the 30-second clip below, you don't see much, I'm afraid (the bird starts off looking very strange, facing the camera), but when it flies away, if you listen hard, over the noise of the wind you might hear that strange call at the very end of the clip. This and their appearance do make me wonder if they might be very distantly related to the Australian Kookaburra.

Like our normal cuckoo, the great spotted doesn't rear its own young but lays in the nest of other birds - almost exclusively (so I'm told) magpies. Understandably, therefore, magpies hate the cuckoos; fights blow up - in which, apparently, the magpies always come off worse. The cuckoo's body might be three inches shorter, but it is "pluscostaud" - sturdier.

As I continued to wait in vain for the honey buzzards, I had a closer look at some of the pretty wildflowers around. Thistles are in bloom everywhere at the moment - there's a whole meadow of them on the Albères side of the hillock.

And another cheerful sight on an otherwise dull day yesterday, were these dandelion-like flowers (which I think Robin once told me aren't dandelions at all, but I can't remember the correct name).

After a while the day brightened even more - not with the sun, but with bee-eaters that began to pass through in quite high numbers (see separate blog). And then Yves spotted a Roller, flying right to left in front of a line of trees. "Il parade" he said, describing with one hand a kind of downward vertical shimmy that must be a mating display. I didn't see this, but did catch a fleeting glimpse of the bird when it perched (blue chest, pink-brown back), before a magpie disturbed it. Yves told me where more Rollers usually hang out, not far away, near Montescot, so I shall have to investigate - it's a bird I've long wanted to see.

I wondered what else was down there in the Reserve. And so, as the honey buzzards were refusing to show themselves, I decided to explore a little more. At the bottom of the hillock I crossed a tiny stream-cum-drainage ditch and joined a narrow track that led away through the long grass. This made me slightly nervous - not because of snakes (although in retrospect I should perhaps have thought about those - May is Snake Month) but because it's the height of the tick season, and some sheep corralled only a few hundred yards away would be spreading more. I tucked my trousers into my socks and headed off anyway.

The occasional scan across the grass with the binos revealed quite a lot of rabbits, which was lovely to see as most seem to have been shot out of existence around us.

After turning left at the sheep, the terrain on one side of the track changed from grass to an impenetrable mass of thistles and blackened, dead bushes - obviously there was a fire here once. I had good views of a male marsh harrier, green woodpecker and a woodchat shrike within about three minutes of one another; clearly the whole reserve is a rich area, worth exploring when I have more time.

The Roller had been "parading" in front of the the trees in this photo

Another day, another chance of seeing honey buzzards so, as this morning dawned sunny with a light north westerly, I went back yet again, in the hopes that the sky would be black with raptors.

Encouraged to find six other cars already in the car park, I hurried to join everyone...

Would my luck be in?

No. Today, it wasn't quite windy enough!

One or two flew overhead, but very very high, rewarding the more âgé and less supple among us with little more than neck ache. But that great spotted cuckoo saved the day - allowing me to get close enough for a half-decent shot and clip for this blog.

I'll have to wait till the autumn and catch those honey buzzards on their return journey; in the meantime there's plenty of other fascinating wildlife to seek out, watch and listen to. Not forgetting the flowers...

After Robin's comment about bee-eaters in his last blog, I can't resist posting this.

Their French name is Guêpiers (wasp-eaters) - but I think any insects are fair game to these gorgeous birds, after once seeing one with a big grasshopper in its beak.

This morning there were more of these than any other bird flying around and over the hillock at Canet St Nazaire. After a while I decided to stroll down for a closer view of whatever might be lurking in the grassland below and, as soon as I reached a little bridge across a stream, I was given a real treat: Fortunately for us, bee-eaters - when they settle at all - like to show off in dead trees and bushes and, for several minutes, I watched one such bush studded as with jewels by up to sixteen of these beauties at any one time. If you've got good eyesight(!) you might be able to spot fourteen in the photo below.

And here are a couple of short videos (with the usual apologies for woefully inadequate equipment and camera shake). Although the birds are distant (my camera was on maximum zoom!) and despite it being a dull day, their colours still shine out in the first clip and you can hear their familiar liquid trill.

I took the second clip of another group really to show their silhouette - something that we have to rely on so often for bird identification. (Both are clearer full screen.)

Shame the last bird in the second clip insisted on preening behind a branch. Here he/she is again, after - typically - emerging as soon as I stopped recording. For more bee-eater photographs, see Isobel's gallery.

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